Phiny Dick

Exhibition room in the basement of Museum Meermanno (Special exhibition May to September 2012)

Afine Dik was born in 1912 in Rotterdam as the only child of Kornelis Dik, a ship's captain, and Afina Hazewinkel.[1]

She completed her studies as an apothecary assistant and worked at a hospital as a nurse-in-training, but when she fell seriously ill with an infected heart muscle, she had to abandon her studies.[1]

In 1935, Dik married Marten Toonder, her neighbour, who shared her love of drawing. Dik had followed a correspondence course in drawing from the Press Art School by the British artist Percy Bradshaw. She then started inking the comic strips written and drawn by Toonder. Marten Toonder worked at the Nederlandsche Rotogravure Maatschappij in Leiden, and they moved there.[1]

To provide an additional income for the family (in 1936 their first child, Eiso, was born), Dik produced her own illustrations and paintings. She changed her pen name to Phiny Dick at the suggestion of publisher Van Goor. Between 1934 and 1938, Dick and Marten Toonder together with his brother, the writer Jan Gerhard Toonder, created the newspaper comic strip Thijs Ijs for "Het Nieuwsblad van het Noorden" and other newspapers. In 1939, she published Miezelientje en Prinses Roozemarijn, a children's book about a white anthropomorfous cat she wrote and illustrated completely.[1] It was published in English in 1941 as Meowina and Princess Rose-Marie

After the outbreak of World War II, Dick and Toonder started working for De Telegraaf and moved to Amsterdam. For that newspaper, Toonder and Dick created a new comic strip, Tom Puss, about a small white cat. Dick invented the name and wrote the first two stories.[1] The series became one of the classic Dutch comics.

In 1944 their second son, Onno, was born. The birth was a difficult one and nearly killed Phiny. When she had sufficiently recovered, Dick created a new book, Schuimpje en Zigzag: it was rejected by the publisher because it contained a mermaid with bare breasts, but as Dick refused to change the illustrations, the book was never published.[1]

In 1941 and 1948 she created two sequels to "Miezelientje". Her main work in the post-war period was the newspaper comic strip Olle Kapoen, which she wrote and illustrated. It appeared not only in Dutch but also in German and Swedish, and ran from 1945 until 1954. It was followed by Birre Beer between 1954 and 1959.[2] She also provided illustrations for "De dag na Bethlehem" by her brother-in-law Jan Gerhard Toonder, and started painting portraits and making tapestries.[1]

Marten and Phiny adopted two Indonesian girls in 1956–1957, and in 1962 they moved to Greystones, in Ireland. Phiny Dick devoted her time to painting. She died in Greystones in 1990.[1]